Page 123 of All These Beautiful Strangers

It was Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte. Poor, precious Charlotte. I had to get up. I had to go to her. But I couldn’t bring myself to move.

Thirty-Five

Charlie Calloway

2017

Hanging out with Dalton again was easier than I thought it’d be. At the very least, it felt good to know I had someone who was there for me, especially when so many people had bailed. Things with Stevie and Yael were tense, and Drew was gone, and I wasn’t talking to Greyson. So I fell in with Dalton and Leo and their friends again. I sat at their table for lunch and dinner. We hung out together on the weekends. And Dalton and I spent most of our evenings together in the library or in one of our rooms until curfew studying.

“You know, I really don’t like the idea of not seeing you for a whole week,” Dalton said as he walked me back to my room one evening. He had his arm around me and pulled me close. It was November, and a light snow dusted campus. “You could come home with me for Thanksgiving break, you know,” he said. “Meet the whole Dalton clan. And my mom’s always asking about you. I’m sure she’d love to spend more time with you.”

“Your mom?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Dalton said, kissing my hair. “Guess she’s a big fan of yours. Not that I can blame her.”

“I don’t think my father would like that very much,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Just because he’d miss me,” I lied. “I haven’t seen him since that dinner we had in the city.”

I had never mentioned my father’s phone call to Dalton, how my father had warned me to stay away from Margot, to stay away from him. My father had sounded so angry over the phone, so commanding. But why? Margot had been engaged to my father at one point, and obviously something had happened to end their relationship. But surely a bad breakup over two decades ago wouldn’t cause my father to act as dramatically as he had. My father’s demand that I stay away from Margot had to be related to something else. Maybe Margot knew something my father didn’t want me to know. Margot had been at school with my father and Jake. She had been an A. She had known my mother, somehow. It suddenly occurred to me that if anyone knew how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, it was Margot. And maybe, just maybe, she would be willing to tell me.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Okay to Thanksgiving,” I said. “I’ll come home with you.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Really,” I said.

He didn’t ask what had changed my mind and I didn’t tell him. Instead, he leaned down and kissed me, and I kissed him back.

The Daltons had an oceanfront mansion in Southampton on three acres of land. The family gathering was small for the holidays, because Dalton was an only child, and half of Dalton’s family was British and didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. So, it would be just Dalton, his parents, and Margot’s sister Regina, her husband, and their three kids, the oldest of whom was ten. Dalton’s father wasn’t coming in from the city until Thursday for Thanksgiving dinner.

I had told my father I was spending Thanksgiving with Drew and her family, and he was disinterested enough in my life not to follow up or ask for anything pertaining to proof.

Dalton’s little cousins were obsessed with him and spent most of their time following him around, begging for wrestling matches or for him to play games with them. So we spent most of our time entertaining them, while I searched for a moment to get Margot alone and ask her my questions.

“How about a game of Hide and Seek?” Dalton proposed one evening after dinner. His cousins squealed with delight and immediately started to argue over who would have to hide first.

“I’ll do it,” I said, raising my hand and standing from the couch. “I’ll go first.” I could feel a headache coming on, and I really couldn’t take any more of their squabbling. Besides, a few minutes of peace and quiet by myself sounded all too tempting. If I could find a really good hiding spot, curl up, and fall asleep for a half hour, that would be heaven. “But close your eyes,” I instructed the cousins. “Close your eyes and count down from one hundred.”

They put their hands over their eyes and started counting loudly. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight . . .”

I pointed at Dalton. “You too. Close those eyes, mister.”

He smiled at me and made a big show of putting his hands over his eyes, and I turned and darted out of the living room.

The house was huge, with eight bedrooms and four and a half baths. There were a million different places to hide. I darted through the kitchen, where the adults were standing around the marble island, glasses of red wine in hand.

“We’re playing Hide and Seek,” I whispered, putting my finger over my lips. “You never saw me.”

Margot laughed and put a finger over her lips. “Saw who?” she whispered.

I ran into the den next. I opened a door I thought was a closet but found a set of stairs instead. Perfect. The basement. I turned on the flashlight on my phone and started down the stairs, shutting the door quietly behind me.